Florence Cane

Florence Cane (September 28, 1882 – 1952) was an art therapist, and the older sister of Margaret Naumburg, a pioneer of art therapy. Junge (2010) stated that Cane considered herself an art teacher with psychology knowledge. Cane did not describe herself as an art therapist, Hinz (2009) claims that Cane is considered the "grandmother of the expressive therapies"^[1] for her theoretical outlook with using art in expressive therapies.

Professional background

In 1910, Cane and Naumburg were trained in Jungian analysis with Beatrice Hinkle. This heavily influenced her work as well as therapeutic and educational approaches. Naumburg established The Children's School, now known as Walden School, in 1914.^[2] Cane worked at the school as an art education teacher in 1918. Cane criticized traditional art teaching methods. Cane felt that "creativity and individuality were being crushed".^[3] Cane chose to move away from the skill teaching method typically used in schools and instead used an integrated approach. While Cane taught at The Children's School, she continued to teach through her private practice at her home. After leaving The Children's School, Cane spoke at teaching seminars and began her own school at Rockefeller center. In 1936, Cane became the director of art at the Counseling Center for Gifted Children of the school of education at New York University and remained in that position for 14 years. Cane continued her private practice during this time.

Personal life

Cane was born in 1882, in Manhattan, NY.

Cane lived during a time of gender, racial, and other discrimination.^[4] wrote that Cane suffered equal discrimination as her same-gender counterparts, which led to her membership in her communities’ women’s rights group. Her husband was supportive of her intellectual and social decisions, and would attend events with her.

Publications

One of Cane's publications was The gifted child in art(1936);^[5] an article in the Journal of Educational Sociology. Cane's first and only book, The artist in each of us, was published in 1951.^[6] A year after her book was published, Cane died.

Therapeutic approach

Cane was trained under the psychoanalytic theoretical orientation and is the baseline to her expressive therapies approaches. Cane's integrated teaching approach involved emotional creativity and free association.^[1] Although Cane was not officially an art therapist, she considered herself to be a psychologically-informed art teacher. Junge said that Cane had patients referred to her by psychiatrists and analysts that were aware of the importance of art imagery as a therapeutic tool.^[3] In Cane's book The artist in each of us,^[6] she expressed the importance of recognizing symbols in a child's artwork. Cane believed that once symbols are made known to the art therapist-teacher, it can be easier to determine the child's issues and needs.

Cane believe that children go though stages and with the right positive reinforcement they are able to create and express themselves. The first stage she called was the nursery period. Cane states that babies should be left alone with materials like pebbles, sticks, and leafs so they can explore the world and become more autonomous. Then once the child becomes adjusted to the art material they will start to create. In this stage the 2–3-year-old is doing sensory muscular activities. It is critical for the parents and care taker to be supportive. She states that the adult should realize that there is a wide difference between the standard of a child and a grown-up, and after this realization the adult will judge the child’s product according to the child’s psychology instead of his own.^[6] If the parent or caretaker is not supportive, for example frowning at the work or laughing at it, this will cause the child to lose confidence. This in turn might make the children not express themselves creatively anymore. The child then till the age of seven is in the scribbling phase. They will find enjoyment in this muscular activity and will explore shape and color. The child will be working and drawing in the one dimension. From the ages 7 to 14 they will seek approval from others. They will begin to look at the world around them and want to replicate it. They will also be working in two dimensions. From ages 14–18 the adolescence will begin to have a deepening consciousness and emotions will be expressed more. They will also be very self-critical of themselves. During this time they will become aware of the third dimension.^[6] Cane believed that this was the process of human development in expressive art therapy.

Cane believed that when people are born they have three chief functions: movement, feeling, and thought. Movement is the kinesthetic sense that each person possesses. This can be expressed in the principle of rhythm. She states that everywhere in the world there is rhythm and it is a basic principle of life. That having a rhythm can help release the motor function and help the individual liberate their feelings. The simplest form of rhythm is the use of repetition. Feeling is another chief function and if released can bring creative faculty. Feeling is dynamic and harmonious in creating art. This means that feelings are the essence of the art. Feeling can come from many different avenues like memory and imagination. The last chief function of an individual is the function of thought. Thought is linked to the idea of balance of the outlets of power. These include vision, observations, memories, imagination, and understanding. With all of the chief functions, movement, feeling, and thoughts, working together the individual can experience the last dimension spiritual awakening. This process is call integration.

Her theories also included external conditions and materials. The conditions Cane (1951) believed to be most favorable for children were white, bare walls; spacious, lighted rooms; and visible materials. The children’s works would typically be the only thing decorating the room. Other decorations were used for specific directives and were typically brightly-colored materials that were used for stimuli.

The materials Cane (1951) believed to be best were soft crayons, tempera paints with large brushes, charcoal, and large sheets of paper. The softer and larger things were, the easier it was for children to express themselves without tightening up. These tools facilitated children with free flowing ideas and kinesthetic movement. She believed this promoted the creative process and use of the subconscious.

Cane, through her years working with children and adolescence, discovered common difficulties among the children she worked with. The difficulties the children had, like fear, pride and inertia, often caused a creative block and were usually underlying symptoms of a psychological attitude.

Inertia, or resistance, is often due to a lack of psychic energy. The reason for a lack of energy for art activities, is because the child's energy is spent doing other things. This energy can be spent on problems at home or school, or if the child has a busy schedule. Cane found a way to break through the inertia and help the child get past the creative block. One way Cane got past the child's block, was by giving the child a previous, unfinished drawing.^[6] The child can then look at the unfinished drawing and decide how to finish it. The hope is that when the child is finished with the drawing, there will be enough energy to begin a new piece of art.

Fear can also cause a creative block. When a child is fearful, safety becomes an issue and the child may become hostile or develop feelings of guilt.^[6] Cane would give a fearful child a simple art activity that was easily executed so that the child could feel satisfaction. If the art activity was too difficult, the child would get discouraged and become afraid of failure. Cane developed the scribble method as a way to get through the creative block and be satisfied with the artwork. The scribble is the child's own design and can't be compared to anyone else's.

Children can have two types of pride. They can have pride that causes conceitedness or the type of pride that causes feelings of inferiority. Cane's approach to conceited pride was to not give the children what they wanted. Cane would not give the child rewards or praise for their artwork. The reason for this was to break the child from making artwork solely for attention. Cane approached the children with inferiority pride in a different way. Cane noticed children with inferiority pride were afraid to create artwork that was less than perfect. Cane used art activities, like the scribble method, to give the children satisfaction in their artwork. Cane stated, "The scribble is a kind of play with a freely flowing continuous line,".^[6] When doing the scribble method, the eyes can be opened or closed. However, keeping the eyes closed helps the line or scribble move freely without the mind trying to direct it. After the scribble is done, children can usually find images in their scribbles. The children are asked to reinforce the scribble lines that form an image. Cane developed this exercise to bring out imagination and unconscious imagery.

Contribution to Mental Health

Cane's most well-known contribution is the scribble line. The scribble line is a dyad process. The first step is to express a line across a piece of paper. There are no limits to what the line looks like and it can overlap itself. She encouraged overlapping and rhythm. The second step is done by the artist analyzing the line, looking to find a form, and then exacerbating what he or she saw. This act allowed the subconscious to take form in a concrete manner.

Personal Art

In her personal art, she created large pieces with the use of her entire body. One of her most notable pieces was in response to Bach’s B Minor Mass. In which she used charcoal on a large-scale drawing paper. This was so she was able to use both arms to create a rhythmic pattern. She started the drawing down by her feet, pushed the lines upward towards the sky, and then outward with both arms. She kinesthetically used her whole body to express how she felt while listening to Bach.

Large-scale was a natural choice and comparative to cave man drawings. She found that there was a heightened emotional connection for the external expression on a larger-scale. Visually it had instinctively formed in her mind while listening to the music, and then later while creating. She found that larger paper allowed more freedom for movement through use of the whole body. “…[L]arge, free movements in drawing released images in my mind that I had been unable to express on a small scale.” (Cane, 1951)

References